


a series of drinks

by Sylv



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Smoking, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylv/pseuds/Sylv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac meets Allison on a nippy October day. Allison meets Isaac at one of Scott's parties. There's a lot of alcohol over the span of a few months, and somehow they fall together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a series of drinks

**Author's Note:**

> This kind of got away from me. It was supposed to be succinct. It's also unbeta'd, so any mistakes, spelling, grammar, characterization or otherwise are all mine.

Isaac meets Allison on a nippy October day when he ducks into Derek’s coffee house to hassle the Hales once again about giving him a job. Laura is behind the counter when he walks inside. She is busy swirling little designs into the foam of the latte that had just been ordered, but when she sees him she abruptly turns on her heel and disappears into the back room, leaving Erica to man the line of customers by herself.

With a frustrated huff, Isaac looks around and sees Derek in the corner arguing heatedly with a girl whose back is to him, but from the set of her shoulders and movement of her hands, seems to be just as invested in the debate. She has dark hair cascading down her back over a jacket of army green. Isaac makes a beeline for the two, and he’s lucky that Derek is so involved in whatever he is talking about, because he doesn’t have a chance to escape like his sister did. In fact, Derek only notices him when he crosses his arms and makes a small ahem noise at the back of his throat.

“Oh,” Derek’s expression shifts from anger to panic and back in quick succession. “I’m in the middle of something, Isaac.”

The girl he is talking to turns at this, and Isaac registers doe eyes, stubborn brows and the proud arch of a nose.

“Sorry to interrupt…” he trails off there, and Derek steps in with resignation, motioning between the two of them.

“Isaac, Allison. Allison, Isaac.”

Glowering isn’t exactly the way that Isaac likes to meet pretty girls, but she manages to pull herself together for a quick, “Pleasure,” before turning back to Derek with a glare.

Despite the quick introduction, Isaac isn’t ready to give up the fight before it starts, and he definitely doesn’t want to head back out into the cold autumn air when his fingers are just starting to warm up again. “Derek, you’ve got to give me a job.”

Derek rolls his eyes at the ceiling. “We’ll finish this later,” he tells Allison, and she bristles silently, but stalks off without another word. Isaac watches her go, weaving quickly through the crowd and out the door which rattles on its hinges as she lets it slam behind her.

“It’s the middle of the work day and I’m not arguing with you about this again.”

At that Isaac’s attention is immediately snapped back to Derek. He throws his hands up in exasperation. “You gave Erica a job!”

“Erica’s worked in a café before. Erica also filled out an actual application and handed in it for consideration. Plus, Laura likes Erica.” Derek’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “Laura doesn’t really like you.”

“Well, I don’t really like Laura, so I guess it’s even.”

Before Isaac can try to further plead his case, Derek is somehow gone, probably in the back with Laura. Isaac heaves a sigh and goes to get some caffeine from Erica now that the line has dissipated.

“I hate it when you come in here,” Erica informs him, wrinkling her nose at the green tea that he insists on drinking. “Everyone always runs off to hide and then I have to deal with the whole shop by myself.”

“Sorry,” Isaac says only somewhat sincerely. The fact that she has a fulltime job with their friends as employers rankles when she starts complaining. He rummages in his pocket for money, and when he looks back up there is a steaming to go mug of tea in front of him, along with a stapled packet.

“It’s an application. Fill it out, Isaac.”

He prepares to face the ten minute walk back to his apartment with his fingers wrapped around the steaming cup, and slips the folded up papers into his jacket pocket.

\---

Allison meets Isaac at one of Scott’s parties that he insists on throwing because he holds onto the hope that all of his friends will one day get along. It’s Allison’s first time attending which means that she has to endure the repetition of ‘just moved to the city’ all night.

She is sitting on the couch talking with Lydia about the weather versus fashion (which she was surprised to find herself interested in, but Lydia seems to have a way of making anything interesting) when her eye is drawn to Scott embracing a tall young man with curly hair.

Scott then drags him over to where Allison is sitting and with a grin begins, “Isaac, this is Allison, she just moved here a few weeks ago.”

Isaac’s soft eyes rest on her, and his lips curl up into a smile. “We’ve met.”

Allison immediately feels herself flush and stands up to talk with him properly. “I’m sorry, I… we’ve met?”

Isaac laughs, expression showing no sign of hurt. “We have, although you seemed pretty busy giving Derek the third degree, so I’m not surprised that you don’t remember.”

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t really narrow down the time frame. If Derek and I are interacting, we’re probably going to be fighting.”

The quirk of an eyebrow is the only real reaction she gets from that statement, but it just as quickly is smoothed back out into neutrality. “It’s pretty easy to get under his skin.”

Allison grimaces at this just as the leather clad man himself walks through Scott’s apartment door. “Speak of the devil,” she mutters before giving Isaac a hasty ‘excuse me’ and hurrying over to him.

Derek is just hanging up his jacket when Allison accosts him. For someone who is fairly small, she can certainly take up a lot of space when she puts her mind to it, and there is no way to get around her without physically pushing her out of the way. Allison plants her hands on her hips and gives him her best glare.

“You keep brushing me off.”

“This is not something that I can talk to you about.” He makes to duck around her, but Allison moves to keep her body in front of him.

“We have to talk about it sooner or later. And I’ve lost track of Kate wherever she’s trekking through South America, so there’s no one else that I can ask.”

Derek frowns at her, and for the first time it seems as though there is a hint of something other than frustration in it. “It’s not something that you need to know about. And it’s none of your business either.”

There it is.

From somewhere behind her Allison hears Scott calling out Derek’s name, so she has no choice but to let him by. She watches his tense shoulders stride up to where Scott and Stiles are laughing at something and feels like there’s an animal gnawing at her stomach. Somehow, her feet take her to the small kitchen, and she finds herself standing in front of the open liquor cabinet.

Tequila, grenadine, orange juice and some ice cubes later, Allison has a tequila sunrise that she seems to have made on autopilot. A small wave of shame nudges at her, but she pushes it out of the way, telling herself that she’ll wash their cocktail shaker before she leaves.

She’s placing a coffee stirrer in the drink when someone sits in one of the chairs at the counter. Allison looks up to see Isaac smiling at her. He makes a hand motion in the general direction of her beverage.

“Rough talk with mister Hale?”

“Tequila is only really for when things are rough, I think.”

He laughs, and she finds that she likes the sound; full, throaty, from deep in his chest. “Amen,” Isaac says, a grin stretched across his face. “Any chance that you could make me one of those?”

Allison doesn’t realize that she has tied her hair back until there is cool air on her neck. “I hope you like tequila sunrises. I haven’t exactly been practicing my mixing skills, so only a few recipes are left off the top of my head.”

“Bring it on.” Isaac leans forward as though to impart a secret. “Make it a little grenadine heavy though. I like the effects of alcohol, not the taste.”

She raises her eyebrows at him, hands pausing as they reach for the ingredients. “Got a little bit of a sweet tooth?”

“If I have the choice, I’ll take a wine cooler over a beer any day.”

They’re sipping the drinks and chatting aimlessly when Stiles ambles over and catches sight of Allison’s work space. “Hey, Allison’s making drinks!” He announces to the entire apartment, and people are suddenly lined up to receive their booze from her.

Isaac has just finished his own drink when Allison grabs his arm and drags him over next to her. “You’re helping. Get your ass over here.”

“I’m game to try, but I’ve never made anything more complicated than a gin and tonic before.”

“I’d imagine that the drunken hordes aren’t likely to object,” Allison says right back, and they spend the next twenty minutes in a rush of clinking glasses and shouting people.

At the end of the night, Scott is standing at the door, helping people find their jackets and making sure that no one drove. Allison is one of the last people to leave. As she is shrugging her own coat on, Scott repeats the question to her: “You didn’t drive, did you?”

“Scott, we all live in the city. None of us even own cars.”

He gives her that shining smile. “Can’t be too careful,” and offers her a quick hug.

“Shoot me a text when you get home. Be safe!”

Allison nods, checks that she has her wallet with money for a cab, and shuts the apartment door behind her with a soft click.

\---

Time moves quickly in the city. It’s like that annoying younger sibling who will tap you on one shoulder, and when you turn to look, not be there. Instead, it will be far, far ahead, laughing and pointing at you as you hurry to catch up.

Allison settles into her job that she moved here to take, teaching archery and other obscure sport classes at a gym. She moves furniture around in her apartment, hangs pictures of her family and friends on the walls, and stocks her fridge. She learns the best places to go so that she can sit and read for a few hours, memorizes the subway system, and still somehow manages to find time to see her new friends. In between all of that, she tries to corner Derek into talking to her. Before she realizes it, a month has passed and it is well into November. Her parents have started calling about making Thanksgiving plans.

Windswept and shivering, Allison shoulders her way into her apartment. It feels as though the cold has permeated her bones so as soon as her boots are off and the carton of eggs placed in the refrigerator, she puts the kettle on the stove with the intention of making some hot chocolate.

Her cell phone rings as she makes herself comfortable sitting on top of the radiator. Allison folds her legs up and glances at the name on her screen.

Isaac. Over the past few weeks they have spent some time together, at first with Scott and others, and then just the two of them. Allison likes hanging out with him. He has a talent for making jokes in most situations, and through conversations they had found that there were several things that they had in common. One full day was spent talking about cars and motorcycles and engines.

He has never called her before though. Their conversations are always over text and usually consist of a very casual ‘hey, you want to hang out?’

Allison flips open her phone and moves her hair to the other side of her neck. “Hello?”

_“Hey Allison. It’s Isaac.”_

“Hey, what’s going on?”

_“Not much. I just seem to have a little bit of a problem.”_

Allison can feel her face draw tight at that. “What’s wrong?”

 _“Well…”_ There’s a pause on the other end of the line, and Allison can almost hear the debate in his head as to whether or not he should be talking to her about this. She says nothing, and he finally continues, _“I’m being kicked out of my place.”_

“What?” Allison squawks, nearly dropping her phone.

There’s a breathless sort of chuckle from Isaac. _“Yeah, that’s what I said. I don’t have money to pay the rent right now, so I need to move out ASAP. I’m really sorry for asking this but—“_

“Are you kidding? Get over here.”

Obvious relief is filtering through Isaac’s voice when he answers. _“Are you sure? I swear, it’ll only be until I find a job and can save up a little. I promise I’ll pay you back for whatever expenses you have to spend on me.”_

“I’m positive. Don’t be stupid, just pack your things and come over. You can stay as long as you need to.” The kettle is starting to whistle, and Allison reluctantly leaves the heat of the radiator to turn off the stove.

_“You’re the best. I’ll buy you something. Ramen.”_

Allison giggles at that and shakes her head. “Don’t spend money you can’t afford to lose. Now get over here. I’m making hot chocolate, and yours will get cold.”

_“See you soon. Seriously, thank you.”_

Allison hangs up and stirs the hot chocolate mix in with the hot water, biting her lip. She only boiled enough water for one, so she refills the kettle and puts it back on the stove. Then, mug in hand, she moves around her apartment, picking up clothes where they are lying in heaps on the floor and cleaning off the couch and coffee table where Isaac would have to stay.

That evening, she and Isaac are sitting together on the couch, bags having been dropped in a corner of the room and extra blankets and pillows stacked on the floor. The initial tour is over, and Isaac’s toiletries are sitting on the sink in the bathroom for morning use. Isaac’s nose is red and he clutches his steaming mug close to his face, eyes closed, savoring the smell and warmth emanating from it.

Allison doesn’t want to pry too much into the situation; she knows that Isaac has been looking for a job for a while now, especially at the Hale’s coffee shop. She doubts, however, that Derek knows the extent of Isaac’s financial situation, or he undoubtedly would have given him a job.

So she starts with, “Scott…”

Isaac interrupts her. “He doesn’t know. He’s done so much for me already, and he has Stiles living with him. I didn’t want to impose another person on his apartment.”

Allison cocks her head and says, “I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded,” but she gets it. In the few weeks that she has known him, Scott has taken the number one spot in her list of friends for kindness, empathy and helpfulness. He wouldn’t have said no, even if he had needed to.

Isaac shrugs and drains about half the hot chocolate in one go, probably burning his tongue and throat as he does so. They shift in the silence, Allison picking at stray threads in her leggings and Isaac staring down into the liquid of his drink.

“Tomorrow I can help you look for jobs if you want,” Allison offers, but before the sentence is finished exiting her mouth, Isaac is emphatically shaking his head.

“No. Thanks. But no. I really need to do this on my own.”

The next morning finds Allison stumbling blearily out of her room in her tank top and sleep shorts, caring about nothing and nobody but coffee. After having taken a few sips of her life blood, she turns around to see Isaac already awake, apparently showered and dressed, sitting at his laptop with a stack of papers by his side.

“Good morning,” he smiles at her. She murmurs the appropriate response, and Isaac seems to find this amusing. “Seems like you’re a little more awake now. I said good morning when you walked out of your room and I don’t think you even heard me.”

Allison blushes. “I’m not exactly functional until I’ve had some caffeine.” She joins him on the couch and notices that he had folded up the sheets and blankets she gave him last night. “Working hard already. At…” she glances at the clock in the kitchen. “nine in the morning.”

“Yeah well, a philosophy major only gets you so far in life.”

“Philosophy major?”

“I decided to pursue it back when I was young, and idealistic, and thought that I would be able to do what I enjoyed as a career.”

Allison doesn’t like this line of conversation at all. “You’ll figure something out. I do what I love and get paid for it.”

“And that’s cool, but philosophy is tricky, and I don’t have the education to teach with it, so I have to do something else. It’s fine, there are other things that I like doing in life. My activities are not limited to reading Plato and analyzing his thoughts on homosexuality.”

Horrified at the laughter that bursts from her lips, Allison slaps a hand over her mouth and stares at Isaac with wide eyes. Isaac seems to be trying to hide a smile by ducking his head down towards his chest.

“That was a little history buff of me, wasn’t it?”

“Just a bit.” Allison rifles through the stack of papers between them. “How long have you been at this?”

“A couple of hours.”

“Why don’t you take a break and we can go get breakfast. I’m buying.” Allison stands up and stretches her arms. “Let me take a shower and then we can go.”

Ten days after Isaac moves in, he comes back to the apartment looking like he just won the lottery. It being one of her days off, Allison is in a pair of sweatpants and fuzzy socks, having spent the entire day watching television and snacking. Isaac sweeps her up into an unexpected hug and spins her around, laughing right into her ear.

When he puts her down, it takes her a moment to regain her balance, and she has to grab onto his forearm so she doesn’t fall over. “What’s the occasion?”

“Derek hired me!” Isaac crows. “He said that he and Laura were impressed that I actually turned in a resume, and that if I worked half as hard at the job as I did at bothering them about it, I was going to do really well.”

“That’s great! We should celebrate.”

“Done and done,” Isaac pulls a bottle of white wine out of his coat and sets it on the kitchen counter when he goes to get glasses from the cabinet.

“Wine and cartoons. How very classy of us.”

“I can’t think of a way I’d rather celebrate,” Isaac responds to that, and hands her a glass when he settles down on the couch next to her. “Maybe we’ll even have some kind of real dinner.”

Two weeks after that, Allison is the one coming home from one of her late classes at the gym. As soon as she opens the door she is enveloped by the smell of something in the oven. Without bothering to hang up her jacket or take her shoes off, she follows her nose into the kitchen and sees Isaac with oven mitts on, taking a pan out.

“That smells amazing.”

Isaac places the pan on top of the stove to cool and turns to her. “I hope so. I’ve spent two hours making this damn lasagna.” Then, with something that could be called a flourish, he whips a piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it to her.

It’s a paycheck.

“My first one from the Hales. Now I can pay you back like I said I would.”

With a shake of her head, Allison presses the check back into Isaac’s hands. “Absolutely not, I don’t want this.”

“But Allison—“

“No. I did nothing more than you would have done for me if our situations were reversed. The only way you’re going to be giving me money is if you move in here and you’re paying for rent.”

Isaac stares at her, and suddenly Allison worries that she may have overstepped some boundary she wasn’t aware of. She barrels on in an attempt to save herself, “I mean, you’re staying with me, and it’s like you’re a permanent resident, yesterday I tripped over a pair of your boxers in the bathroom when I was brushing my teeth.”

He blinks. “Let’s have dinner.”

They eat, and afterwards Isaac doesn’t immediately get up to wash the dishes. Allison thinks that must be progress.

\---

It’s snowing outside, although in the city that doesn’t usually mean much; the flakes melt as soon as they hit the ground. Snow means that they sky is that bright white-grey color, even in the middle of the night, and Isaac is sitting in Allison’s favorite spot on the radiator, watching the weather and waiting for his roommate to come home.

She does get back home, finally. When Isaac hears her fumbling with the keys at the door, his gaze slides to the clock in the kitchen that says 12:44 AM.

Allison practically falls through the doorway, hair wet and matted down, skin rosy and flushed from the cold, coat not even zipped up. Her hands are shaking, stiff and unable to use the fine motor skills needed to unlace her boots.

Isaac is up and at her side almost at once, hands wrapped around her upper arms. She is very clearly drunk, and if her inability to walk in a straight line didn’t prove that, the smell radiating off of her certainly would.

He helps her to the couch after a brief debate over if they could make it to her bed. Allison trips over her own feet, and Isaac decides that the closer option is the better one.

Once she’s sitting on the couch, head lolling on the back, he hurries to the cabinet and gets her a glass of water. She’s laughing when he gets back to the couch and sets the glass down on the table in front of her, quick breaths and small, breaking sobs in between. Isaac has never seen her in this state, and all he can think to do is bring the water to her lips and ask that she drink, hoping the water will hydrate and calm her down a little.

When she’s done taking a few little sips she doesn’t seem like she is going to break down into tears anymore. Allison gestures helplessly at the boots still half-laced on her feet, and Isaac obligingly leans down to untie them, easing them off her feet and placing them on the floor.

Allison curls up with her legs on the cushion and leans over until she is on Isaac’s shoulder. This close, he can see her eyelashes wet and matted together, dried tearstains on her cheeks. Her wet hair brushes his skin, and he feels goose bumps raise up and down his arms.

“Allison, did you walk back from the bar?”

She sniffles. “Yes.”

“Weren’t you freezing?”

“No. I’m drunk.”

Trashed, Isaac thinks, but only shifts so that she is resting more comfortably against his arm.

Allison brings up her hands and stares at them like she’s never seen them before. Isaac is about to suggest that she try drinking a little more water when she starts talking, only slurring her words minimally considering how off balance she is.

“My Aunt Kate is this presence that’s always in my life. In a good way, you know, not in like a looming, scary kind of way. She’s the cool aunt that you want to go visit so that you can go shopping and talk about boys and watch movies with, and she’ll always let you have a little bit to drink, even if you’re not twenty-one yet.”

Isaac’s heartbeat speeds up slightly. This is not the kind of talk that they have ever had before, and he isn’t sure if they would be having it if she wasn’t so entirely gone. He considers trying to quiet her, or putting her to bed.

“I have always wanted to be like her. She always seems calm and collected, she knows what to do in an emergency, like a break up or a fight with your parents.” Something broken escapes from Allison’s throat. “But she’s passionate too, and I want that, I want her knowledge and her love and fun.”

One of her hands snakes down Isaac’s arm, and she entwines their fingers together, leeching some of his warmth. He makes to say something in her pause, but she isn’t listening to him and continues.

“But I’ve seen her angry too. She’s never gotten mad at me, not even when I was younger and would accidentally break things in her house. My dad though… sometimes they would get into fights, and you could hear it no matter where you were in the house. My dad never yells, not like everyone else does, but he yelled at her. And she shouted right back.” Allison hiccups and twists her head so that she can look up at Isaac. “Derek hates me.”

“No he doesn’t,” Isaac says automatically, thrown off by the change in topic.

She nods, and there are tears on her face again. “Yes, he does. He hates me because I look like her, and I act like her, and I love her. He especially hates me because I love her.”

Isaac is totally lost, so he pets her hair with his free hand and waits. She’s curled in on herself, like maybe if she tries hard enough she will take up so little space that she’ll disappear.

“He told me that they dated,” the words are slightly muffled by the fact that her face is nuzzled into the sleeve of his shirt. “I didn’t even know that until I moved here and I met Derek and he looked at me like I was poison and the next time I talked to her I was telling her about the new people and she knew him. I told her everything about my life, but I know nothing about hers.”

Allison clutches at Isaac, and there’s a note of hysteria back in her voice when she says, “She broke him Isaac. She broke him and I would never have known if Derek didn’t tell me what happened, and I still love her.” Her voice raises in volume, her body begins to tremble. “And I shouldn’t love her because it’s awful what she did to him and she doesn’t even care! But in my head she’s the one who made me chicken noodle soup when I was sick and my parents were out of town, and she took me on my first ever roller coaster, and she helped me pick out dresses for my school dances. Now there’s this whole other person that I have to blend with that Kate. What do I say to her when she gets back from her trip? How do I act around her now that I know when we have to eat Christmas dinner together and I’m opening the presents she got me? The presents that are going to be perfect because she always knows exactly what I want.”

Isaac breathes a soft “I don’t know” into her hair.

“I can’t exactly approach it as a casual conversation. ‘Oh hey Aunt Kate, remember that time you emotionally scarred an underage boy, and coerced him into sexual situations that he wasn’t ready for?’”

She’s getting all of this out between heaving breaths, and Isaac makes an executive decision. “It’s time to go to sleep,” he tells her firmly, and with his help, Allison manages to fall into bed. He brings the water to put on her nightstand, but when he turns to head back to the couch, a small hand reaches out and grabs the hem of his shirt.

“Stay with me?” Allison’s eyes are wide, and her fingers hold him too tightly, like she is afraid if he leaves she will never see him again.

In response, Isaac crawls in next to her, and they both wriggle under the covers. Allison keeps a hand on him and falls into sleep almost immediately. Isaac lies awake for most of the night, listening to her even breathing and watching the stars move across the sky.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes up to Allison on the phone, telling work that she is sick and can’t come in today. She drops the cell back onto her bedside table and rolls over, meeting Isaac’s eyes.

“Sorry I woke you up,” she whispers. Instead of responding to that he asks, voice gruff from sleep, “How’s your hangover?”

“Definitely in the top ten worst I’ve ever had,” Allison admits, and they share a light chuckle. There’s a moment of silence before Allison says to him with clear reluctance at broaching the topic, “I promise that drinking to the point of being kicked out of bars is not my usual coping mechanism.”

Isaac sincerely means it when he tells her that it’s alright. He fiddles with a hole in her comforter and weighs how much he feels comfortable saying what’s on his mind right now. Eventually he decides that Allison probably needs to hear it more than he needs to keep it buried.

“About loving your aunt even after what Derek told you about her…” Allison flinches, but Isaac reaches for her hands and brings them up between their bodies, holding her attention. “It’s okay that you feel like that, you know. My dad… There were some times that my dad did some things and they… It was hard because they were pretty bad, but I loved him you know? He was still my dad.”

Allison looks like she doesn’t know whether to move closer or give him space. “I’m so sorry Isaac.”

“It’s fine. I dealt with it. I’m still dealing with it. I just… You need to know that you don’t stop loving someone because they do terrible things. And that doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Allison’s eyes are a little too bright. “How did you get so smart? You’ve been misleading me.”

Isaac manages to pull a ragged laugh from his chest. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t always. A lot of time and a lot of talking about it. Talking to someone who knows what they’re doing is really helpful.”

Allison hmmms in her throat and blinks a few times.

They only venture out of bed the rest of the day for painkillers and sustenance. At some point they both change out of their wrinkled clothes and into more appropriate sweatpants and t-shirts. Last night is carefully tip-toed around in conversation, and they end up falling asleep again, together.

\---

She knows that she shouldn’t, but the coffee shop is on the walk to her destination, and no one can blame her for dropping in to grab something warm to help her brave the December chill, right?

Right.

Allison dances from foot to foot in line, craning her neck to see the counter as though that will make the line move faster. She also pretends like her eyes don’t flit every which way, attempting to catch a glimpse of short dark hair, broad shoulders, really pretty extraordinary bone structure. She looks down at her watch. There is a good twenty minutes before her appointment.

When she does finally reach the front of the line it’s Isaac who smiles up at her. Allison’s stomach does a little jump and then sinks as low as it can go—she forgot that he was working today. Damn.

“Hey Allison,” Isaac says as casually as possible, wiping his hands on the towel hanging out of one of his apron pockets. He hitches back up the smile that had slid off his face at the sight of her. “What can I do for you today?”

Allison swallows down her flare of anxiety and says, “I think I’ll try that peppermint latte everyone’s so crazy about.”

He gives her one of those sidelong glances that she has come to recognize as one of the only outward hints that he’s having an inner debate about whether to say something. Allison busies herself digging around in her purse unnecessarily, pulling out her wallet and counting her money until Isaac moves away to steam her milk.

She looks up then, smiles and nods at Boyd and Erica when they catch her eye, discreetly scans the heads of people in the shop. Still nothing. It’s with a sigh that she takes her latte and hands Isaac the money he is owed.

As he uses the cash register to figure out her change, he looks her dead in the eye and she can’t look away; not from him.

“How are you, Allison?”

She smiles. It feels like she is stretching skin too tightly over bone. “Fine. I’m fine.” Allison then escapes with her coffee into the gray winter morning.

Even though it has been a couple of appointments now, Allison still feels strange sitting on a couch facing a woman across a table, with an hour in front of her to talk about herself. Reversing a lifetime of worrying for others and conditioning that concern for oneself is not only weak but selfish has proven to be more difficult than she may have initially thought.

Especially because this particular woman she found seems to be able to sniff out exactly what it is that Allison is trying to hide that particular day.

“Did you stop at the coffee house on your way here?” There’s a meaningful glance at the still-warm latte in Allison’s hand.

Allison flinches and fights the heat that wants to rise to her face. “Yes.”

“You’re fixating.”

“I know I am,” Hell, if she’s paying this woman to help her with her problems, she might as well be truthful and actually try to make some headway. “I feel like I need to make up for what Kate did to him. I have to—I have to prove to him that I’m not like her, and that I can be a better person. That he doesn’t have to hate me.”

“We’ve talked about this. How people feel about you is more of a reflection on them than it is on you as a person.”

“I know, I know, but. He has every reason to be wary of me. I know that I kind of look like her, my dad says that I act like her sometimes. She’s my aunt. If someone had done something to me like she did to him, I wouldn’t just hate their family, I think I’d probably hate men as a whole.”

“There is nothing wrong with that. Allison, basing your happiness on someone else means that you’re letting them have control over your life. It means that if Derek isn’t happy, there is no way that you can be either.”

“So is it stupid that I feel this way? That I feel like I have to fix what Kate broke somehow?”

“Of course not. What you’re feeling is always legitimate. Always. But what we need to work on is that part of your brain that can acknowledge, yes I feel this way, and that’s okay, but I am going to be the person who dictates how I feel from now on.”

“I can’t handle someone hating me.”

“From what you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound like he hates you. In fact, it sounds like he spent weeks dodging you in an attempt to preserve your relationship with your aunt as well as not having to rehash the past.”

“But what if he does? Hate me, I mean?”

“Then that is his problem. You can’t control how someone feels. You can only try to control how you react to it.”

Allison leaves the appointment an hour later feeling the way she usually does afterwards—confused. There’s that voice in her head that sounds like her mother, the one who is always telling her to calm down, think rationally. Her father who is quieter, more supportive: ‘you can do it Allison, we both know that you can’. And one other voice, a new one that sounds suspiciously like Isaac, “It’s okay if it hurts Allison.”

On the way back to the apartment, she determinedly does not look at the busy little coffee shop.

Allison spends the rest of the day keeping herself occupied. She cleans the entire apartment, even the bathroom which she and Isaac had been having a silent stand-off to see who could withstand the grime longer. She uses up all the baking ingredients that they have, and the smell of cookies permeates every room once she is finished.

Her mind is still racing and all the thoughts seem to be DerekDerekDerek so Allison eventually gives up and roots through her underwear drawer to find the small drawstring pouch that holds her blown glass bowl and a little bit of weed.

By the time Isaac comes home at the end of the day, Allison is completely stoned and the bowl is almost empty. He looks from her to the stack of horror movies by the DVD player, and Allison is worried that he is going to start a conversation that she cannot have at the moment.

To her immense relief, all he does is swipe the bowl from her and finish it off out the window on top of the radiator. Eyes glazed and red, he collapses onto the couch next to her.

They eat every single one of the cookies Allison baked earlier that day.

\---

Isaac doesn’t bother knocking at Scott’s apartment anymore unless it’s locked. And then he bangs on it relentlessly until either Scott or Stiles lets him in. He gets very offended when he is locked out, even though they have repeatedly explained to him that he is not the only person who ever comes to their door and they do like to make sure not anyone can waltz into their space.

Scott, being who he is, tries to leave the door unlocked if he knows that Isaac is coming over. It’s just one of the things that makes him Scott.

When Isaac enters this time, the two are sprawled out on the floor playing video games. Headsets, three days’ supply of snack food and no pants, which Stiles has claimed loudly is the only way to play.

Instead of answering his greeting, Stiles throws a headset which smacks Isaac in the chest. “Where’ve you been? Scott said that we couldn’t go online until you got here.”

Isaac allows the headset to drop to the floor, his bag quickly following. “Sorry, not today. I actually need to talk to Scott.” He stuffs his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and quirks an eyebrow. “Also, I was promised dinner.”

“Dinner’s right here, bro.” A sweeping gesture to the Doritos and pretzels littering the floor.

Scott grins and takes off his own headset, saving and taking the game back to the start screen. Stiles’ protests follow them into the kitchen while Scott says to Isaac over his shoulder, “Come on, I’ll make you something legitimate.”

By ‘legitimate’, Scott means grilled cheese sizzling in a pan on the stove. Stiles sticks his head in on his way to his room and tells them that they are the worst, he’ll be waiting for when they’re ready to kick some cyber ass.

For all of his commentary, Stiles can tell when someone wants to have a private conversation, and Isaac hears Stiles’ door close with more noise than would have normally been necessary.

Scott and Isaac sit and munch on their grilled cheese. Scott tends to put other things in with the cheese so that one sandwich can fill you up; he’s also one of the only people who won’t make fun of Isaac to the sun and back about his not-so-secret health food fever. So when Isaac produced an avocado to put on his, Scott merely shook his head and chopped it up.

Scott finishes eating first and watches Isaac for a minute. Isaac is putting a lot of effort into not making eye contact with him and taking as small bites as possible from his grilled cheese. At the time, coming to Scott seemed like a really good idea. Who better to talk to about your problems? There’s no one who will be more sympathetic and offer more sincere advice.

Now, however…

“Alright Isaac, come on. What’s going on?”

Allison’s private life, Allison’s mental health. Allison’s private life, Allison’s mental health.

Find a compromise, Isaac.

“How do you think Allison is doing right now?”

Subtle.

Scott’s eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline, but he answers the question. “She seems off. Like there’s something happening with her, and she doesn’t know how to approach it. Which seems to be something that doesn’t happen very often.”

Isaac leans onto his forearms. “This whole thing that’s happening with her and Derek. It’s really getting to her, and I don’t know how to help. And if I’m living with her I should try to help, right?”

“Allison’s pretty tough.” Scott smiles at him, and Isaac feels the muscles in his back relax minutely. “But if you’re letting her know that you’re there, that she can come to you if she needs to, there isn’t much more that you can do. She’s a private person, and she likes to handle her problems on her own.”

That is not the answer that Isaac is looking for, and from the expression on Scott’s face, he knows it. Isaac opens his mouth to say something, maybe about how he needs to do more for her, maybe to ask what Scott would do if he were in his place, but Scott interrupts him before he can get a sound out.

“Allison told me that she’s been going through a rough time. She also said that you’ve been more supportive than most, and that it was your idea for her to see someone to talk to about what is going on.”

Isaac blinks. He didn’t know that Allison had shared so much with Scott. Then again, he probably should have guessed it; he had never seen anyone click the way that the two of them had over the past few months.

“And you know firsthand that Allison doesn’t give out those kind of compliments lightly. I think you’re helping her more than you know.” And then, like they hadn’t just pulled on their serious faces, Scott glances down at Isaac’s empty hands and says, “Are you ready to game now? I think Stiles might dry up from digital gun depravation if he doesn’t get to play soon.”

“Like you’re one to talk. I’ve seen you on a first playthrough.”

Scott just laughs at that, head thrown back, and something about it makes the world tilt on its axis a bit, just the smallest amount to throw everything off balance, but in the best way possible.

When Isaac is back in front of the TV, he toes off his shoes and throws them at the closed door that Stiles is behind, calling out, “Stop sulking and get out here you ass.”

Stiles opens the door slightly and pulls the shoes into his room. A minute later he emerges, dusting off his hands. “I’m holding those hostage until you make up your rudeness to me somehow.”

“Play nice,” Scott tells them, a comment which is offset by the huge handful of popcorn he shoves into his mouth afterwards.

\---

“To boys,” Allison says, raising her shot glass into the air. “They suck.”

“Do they ever,” Isaac answers, and they slam back their drinks.

It is pretty unusual for Allison and Isaac to dedicate an entire evening to drinking. Not that having some drinks isn’t a normal part of their lives; they tend to have wine with dinner whenever they cook it themselves, and Isaac never objects to trying out Allison’s new mixes whenever she finds time to practice her bartending skills again.

This particular instance happened to occur on a Thursday night, with both of them having the day off tomorrow. Allison and Isaac arrived back at the apartment around the same time and flopped down, Allison managing to make it as far as the couch whereas Isaac allowed himself to crumple down onto the floor.

After a few minutes of moaning and groaning wordless complaints, Isaac had pulled himself up and grabbed the Jager out of the cabinet with one hand and two shot glasses with the other.

That had been at least a few shots ago. Maybe more. Isaac keeps filling up her shot glass when she isn’t looking, and Allison has no problem throwing back with him when he does. It isn’t until they start toasting to things that Allison thinks they’re probably farther gone than they realize.

As much as Isaac always protests drinking beer of any kind, he is chasing his most recent shot with large gulps of one when Allison finishes wiping the little drops that escaped from the corner of her mouth. She sighs and pours them both another half shot.

“So…” Allison swirls the liquid around in her glass. “What is it about boys that has you drinking to their demise?”

Isaac doesn’t pause before his consumption of the drink. “Not their demise,” he corrects breathlessly. “Just acknowledging the fact that they don’t make sense. Not that girls are any easier to figure out.”

Allison snorts, and Isaac looks to be hiding a smile behind the rim of his glass. “What about you?”

“Derek,” is what Allison offers in response, and Isaac doesn’t look like he needs anything more than that. He just takes her drink and fills it up the rest of the way. When she glances at him, he makes a drinking motion.

“You definitely need it.” He tells her.

Somewhere in between the halfway mark on the bottle and Isaac turning on his ‘drunk playlist’ on his iPod, they end up on the floor. The ceiling captures their attention more than it should, but that might be because, at least for Allison, it seems to be spinning, first in one direction, then in the other. It takes a lot of effort to tune back into what Isaac is saying, because the blurring paint flecks are enthralling at this point.

“… that he’s avoiding you. But you keep trying to corner him, even though I have no idea what you would say to him if you did. Do you even know what you would say to him?”

Allison frowns, but manages to form a semi-coherent sentence once she works out what Isaac was talking about. “I can’t leave things the way they are. My family owes him.”

“Your aunt owes him,” Isaac corrects. “You didn’t even know him when this whole thing happened. And now you’re like, obsessing over it.”

“That’s why you told me to go to therapy though, right? So that I could work on my problems?”

She’s looking at his face. Isaac had been looking at the ceiling as well, but when she says this he turns his head so that they lock gazes. “Scott told me that you were seeing a therapist.”

“Once you told me that you went and it helped, I thought I would give it a try.”

A bright smile breaks across his face, and Isaac scoots closer to her. “Yeah, but no one ever actually listens to me. Plus, you know, the stigma that comes with seeing a therapist.”

Allison rolls her eyes. Or at least, she tries to. She isn’t sure how well it works out. “Feeling better should be a bigger priority than keeping up appearances. Anyway, one of the things I’m working on is trying to care less about what other people think about me. That’s what I’m told is one of ‘our goals’.”

Isaac opens his mouth to reply, but Allison stops him with an outstretched hand. “We can talk about me some more later. What about you, why did you decide to get drunk tonight?”

He blows a lungful of air out from between his lips and his eyebrows draw together and down, like it’s the kind of thing that he doesn’t want to talk about, even in this current state of inebriation.

With much effort, Allison sits up and grabs the bottle of Jager, not even bothering with the abandoned glasses on the table. She then swings her arm around so that the bottle is hovering right next to Isaac’s head. “You need more,” she says firmly. “If you still aren’t willing to talk about what’s up.”

Isaac leans up on one forearm to grab the bottle from her without protest, and Allison can’t help but notice his jawline, the lashes around his eyes, the curls on his forehead.

“Have you ever noticed that one or both of us needs to be wasted for us to have these kinds of conversations?”

Allison is about to answer when Isaac takes a huge swig. He swallows it all, but ends up coughing and she is forced to react more quickly than she would like to prevent the bottle from hitting the floor and spilling everywhere.

“Multiple things,” he says when he can breathe again. “Some of them have to do with you,” and here he chooses to glare at her in mock anger, as though she doesn’t laugh at him every time he does. “Some of them have to do with overarching philosophical questions, like where will my philosophy degree take me. But a lot of them recently have had to do with Scott.”

“Scott?” Allison can’t imagine anyone having any kind of problems with Scott. “What about Scott?”

Isaac sighs and falls back so that he is once again staring at the ceiling. Allison follows his lead. “The eternal question: is he just being friendly, or is he flirting with me?”

If she had less of a ratio of blood-to-alcohol in her system, Allison might be surprised at this. As it is, she merely rolls over onto her side and says, “I think that if Scott was flirting with you, you’d know.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he’s Scott, and he has a lot of wonderful qualities, but subtlety doesn’t seem to be among them.”

They both have to grin at that. “So, he’s being friendly. Which means that nothing is probably ever going to happen.” Isaac says this with his smile still lingering, so Allison decides to take it as a statement of fact rather than disappointment.

“That’s alright, you’ll always have me and alcohol to get you by.”

“Speaking of which,” Isaac sits up and pulls Allison up after him by the front of her shirt. “We’d better put this away. I think if I look at it any more I might throw up.”

Allison wants to tease him for being a lightweight, but the sloshing in her head combined with the level of alcohol actually left in the bottle means that she has no room to talk. They stumble to the cabinet together and drop the shot glasses into the sink. The empty beer bottles are left on the coffee table to be cleaned up in the morning.

At the same time they both realize they have to pee, and Isaac winds up leaning on the door frame while Allison goes, eyes closed and keeping up a stream of commentary about how she needs to hurry up. Through half-lidded eyes she stares at him. He looks good while he’s leaning against things. He shouldn’t look so good while leaning. Leaning shouldn’t even be something that someone should be able to look good doing.

They have the semblance of mind to brush their teeth before they collapse, but the fine motor skills required are lacking, and toothpaste ends up everywhere. It is decided without talking about it that that will also be cleaned up by one of them in the morning.

They’re too drunk and too tired to get under the covers, so they fall asleep without blankets on, knees and hands touching, breaths mingling. Before they do, Allison’s eyes flutter shut and she whispers, “Maybe we won’t need to, anymore.”

“Need to what?”

“Be drunk,” Allison says, and a little ball of warmth blossoms in Isaac’s chest.

\---

It is December 31st the next time Isaac goes to a real party. The awkward Christmas conversations have finally ended, and Isaac no longer finds himself needing to explain that he doesn’t have any family, and therefore has no plans.

This year, instead of staying alone at his place and trying to find a channel that isn’t playing Christmas movies, Allison stays in the apartment with him. In the days before the holiday, he noticed no packing on her part, no move to buy presents or book plane tickets.

It seemed that the Family Situation Which Shall Not Be Named was bleeding over into traditional family gatherings. For a while her phone rang almost constantly, and every single time it did Allison would hit ignore on the screen.

“Aren’t you afraid that maybe they’ll just show up here one day?” Isaac asks her once after she rejects three calls in a row.

She shakes her head. “It’s too much of a hassle to fly all the way out here when I might not even let them in. I can be just as stubborn as they can.” The last part seems more directed at reassuring herself than informing her roommate.

So Isaac and Allison come to the end of December both in somewhat foul moods, and it is in this state that they are walking to the Hale coffee shop, watching their breath freeze and huddling together in a futile attempt to keep warm.

Somehow Laura had talked Derek into having a New Year’s Eve party at the coffee house. She made a list about how there would be more space for everyone they wanted to invite, that they could serve their own favorite drinks and food, that there was a nice television in the back room where they could watch the ball drop in Times Square. Surprisingly, Derek had agreed.

Isaac nearly had to beg Allison to come with him to the party. She balked at the possibility of being unable to avoid Derek when she had finally come to the conclusion that there was no positive outcome in her chasing after him. She finally agreed once Isaac pointed out that a New Year’s party was bound to be chock full of people and just one could be easily avoided.

When Isaac and Allison had arrived, the place was indeed already teeming with all of their friends, plus plenty of other people that neither had ever seen before. Boyd and Erica were hurrying about, restocking whatever food was running low. Jackson Whittemore was back in town from London, and he was monopolizing both Lydia Martin and Danny Mahaelani’s time. Cora Hale, the elusive younger sister of Laura and Derek was sticking to her siblings’ sides, glaring at anyone who dared come too close. The air is warm and smells of pastries, full of chatter.

Scott glances over and meets Isaac’s eyes, smiling and raising a hand in greeting. Isaac feels his stomach do a sad little flip-flopping motion, and he presses closer in to Allison.

The door shuts behind them with the tinkling of a bell, and the two are noticed by those closest to them. Stiles looks up from his conversation with the twins Ethan and Aiden, and grins when he sees Allison.

“Allison’s here!” he tells whoever is listening, and hooks his arm with hers to pull her up towards the counter of the shop. “Time for drinks everybody!”

There is a small wave of clapping and whistling throughout the room. Isaac notices with a chuckle that Allison is strategically using her hair to cover her face. Apparently her skills with alcohol and mixers has spread since the last party she attended at Scott’s place.

Without question, Isaac falls into place beside her. Despite her protests that she really doesn’t know what she is doing, Allison’s hands fly to make the drinks that are requested of her; Cosmos, Pina Coladas, Sex on the Beach, Martinis, Bloody Marys, Rum & Cokes, Mojitos, Long Island Iced Teas. Isaac is designated to the drinks that are so easy to make, anybody could do it; the wines, beers, simple shots, and occasional ice water that Allison can’t be bothered with while she is flipping bottles and frosting glasses.

After the line dies down Allison is showing Isaac some of her favorite tricks to do with the bottles and glasses. She is using empty bottles because Isaac had said something along the lines of “I bet you can’t do any of that stuff after a couple of shots” and the two of them had happily thrown back some straight whiskey.

Laura, having heard the exchange, told them that there was no way they were risking any of her booze, and pressed a few empty bottles into Allison’s hands.

“I’ve still got it," Allison is saying, tossing a bottle behind her back and catching it, top up, with her opposite hand in front of her body. “Whiskey’s got nothing on me.”

Isaac is just about to suggest that they see how she fares after another few shots when a shadow falls over them and a deep voice says, “Kamikaze please.”

Allison’s movements falter, and Isaac instinctively reaches out to prevent shattered glass on the floor.

Derek is standing in front of them, hands shoved deeply down his pockets, brows set low against his eyes and staring at Allison as though that will make the tension dissipate. Allison just stands there, holding her empty Grey Goose bottle, fingers tightening until they start to turn white around the edges.

Isaac clears his throat and steps up. Derek’s eyes shift to him. “Yeah, Kamikaze, sure. What goes in a Kamikaze, Allison?”

That snaps her back to herself, and Allison gingerly places the bottle down on the counter. Her hands are shaking slightly while she makes the drink, and there are no tricks during the process. She does manage to hand Derek his drink with eye contact and a smile. He nods at her in return, and moves off to find his sisters again.

Allison heaves a sigh when he is gone, and she looks more vulnerable than Isaac thinks he might have ever seen her, even when she was drunk and crying into his shirt. She looks up at him from under her lashes and Isaac opens his arms, allowing her to fall into a hug with him. He buries his nose in her dark curls. She smells like strawberries.

With just an hour to go until midnight, Laura Hale climbs up onto the counter and clinks a fork against her glass until she has the attention of everyone in the room. “It is a Hale family tradition,” she begins, “that in the hour before the new year, you must take at least six shots of hard liquor on top of whatever you are already drinking. This may be because we are a family of heavyweights, and no one has ever ended up on the floor before. Every ten minutes or so I’ll be making a toast, and everyone takes their shot at the same time. Then, after the last one, we’ll all pack into the back room to watch the ball drop. Everyone load up!”

Allison and Isaac are busy for the next hour pouring everyone their preferred shots. Every time Laura hops up onto the counter she is that much drunker, and Isaac suspects that the crowd isn’t much better. He and Allison decide to try a different drink for each shot. Isaac insists that the cherry-flavored vodka is the best, but Allison likes the more fiery burns like Irish whiskey.

Five minutes before the ball is supposed to drop, Laura crawls onto the counter one last time. “To the new year!” she exclaims, and with groans and mutters of how much they are going to regret this the next day, everyone tips their drinks back. A full body shudder later, Laura grins and points to the door in the back of the store. “Everyone’s gotta fit in there now, so get to know your neighbors and follow me.”

Isaac allows himself to be swept back with the press of the crowd and hooks his fingers into Allison’s dress strap so that she is forced to follow him. Isaac ends up with his back against one of the walls and Allison pressed against his front. He looks down at her, one arm crooked awkwardly to hold his drink above and to the side of the heads and shoulders of the people around him. She smiles up at him and says, over the murmur of the mass, “I guess I’m not going to see the ball drop after all.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you a play-by-play,” Isaac assures her, fixing his eyes on the screen mounted high on the wall across the room.

It seems that, by some miracle, everyone fits in the small room because Derek closes the door behind the last of them that trickle in. Laura pulls him close and shouts, “Now, make sure you have your kissing partner and we should be all set!” She then plants a smooch on Derek’s lips, and everyone laughs because Derek’s reaction is about the same as a five-year-old boy’s would be.

Two minutes left. Isaac shares his fruity drink with Allison, passing the little plastic cup between the two of them. He wishes that he had taken his coat off when he had the chance; the combination of alcohol and shoulder-to-shoulder contact is making him overheat. The color red is high on Allison’s cheekbones.

Sixty seconds. The ball begins its slow descent, and Allison finishes off the drink, letting the cup drop carelessly to the floor.

“It’s dropping,” Isaac tells her, watching the screen. “Fifty seconds to go. Still dropping. Oh, we have a Times Square crowd shot now. Dropping. Dropping pretty slowly actually. This is really uninteresting now that I’m trying to narrate it out loud. Thirty seconds. Halfway there. Fuck, this is slow. They’ve got that little counter thing in the corner of the screen. The ball’s got lots of lights. It’s pretty bright. Huge too, I guess. Fifteen seconds. Finally, the action’s about to start. Everyone’s going to count down. Here it is. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one…!”

There’s whooping and cheering in his ears. Allison grabs his face in both of her hands and kisses him.

When she pulls back, she’s smiling. Isaac is pretty sure that he is too.

\---

Things sort of fall into place after that. When Allison comes home from her therapy appointment, Isaac is there with a smirk and a sarcastic remark. She’s memorized his work schedule so that she can always try to drop by when he’s on shift and grab a cup of coffee from him. As someone who only drinks tea when he can, Isaac has markedly improved his brew.

Not too much changes. Isaac is still the one who cooks, even though he has been trying to teach Allison some of his recipes so that she won’t starve if he’s ever out of town. He claims that she still makes the best drinks that he has ever had, and that she could make bank if she picked up even one shift a week from one of the local bars. Allison tells him that she prefers to get drunk with the people that she serves. Watching them drink while she stays sober is much less fun.

They spend a day moving Isaac’s things into more permanent locations. Even though he has been staying with her for months now, his suitcases were still lying out on the floor. It’s a pleasant day with winter sun shining through the windows while they argue about how much space Allison actually needs for her shoes and which drawers can be consolidated for Isaac’s boxers and socks.

Allison finally gets to fold up the sheets on the pull out couch and put them away in her closet. Isaac helps her pile all the pillows back on the bed, keeping up a constant stream of narrative about how so many pillows are stupid if you’re just going to take them off to sleep every night. She whacks him with one of them in retaliation.

They kiss, hesitantly at first. Isaac likes to lean down and press a chaste one on Allison’s forehead, and Allison enjoys the convenience of kissing the muscles of his arms and shoulders. Now, they fall asleep in each other’s arms than simply next to each other, Allison curling up back into his body.

One morning, Allison wakes up to a grey sky. The speckled light plays across Isaac’s face in its smoothness, the calm of sleep. She intertwines their fingers, and a small smile curls his lips.

“Watching people when they sleep is not romantic, no matter what the movies tell you.”

She leans in so that their noses are brushing. “I can deal with you thinking I’m a little bit creepy.”

“Oh yeah?”

“As long as it’s just a little bit.”

Isaac opens his eyes then and leans in so that he can kiss her. Allison sighs into it, pulling the blankets on the bed up higher so that only their heads are exposed. Underneath them, she pulls Isaac closer. Their legs brush together. It tickles.

Allison manages to twist her body around so that she can reach her phone. It’s only a few taps to pull up and turn off the alarm that she has set for an hour from now. First, she has to exit out of several missed calls from the night before. Her fingers hover over her touch screen.

Isaac seems to know what is happening. He places his hand over hers and lowers the phone. “Parents?”

She grimaces and puts the phone face down. “Persistent parents.”

Isaac licks his lips like he always does when gearing up to say something that might not be received well. “It’s been months Allison.”

“I know. I’m just not sure that I’m ready.”

“That’s okay,” Isaac’s expression is earnest. “Just want you to know that I’d like to meet the family that raised such an amazing person.”

Allison blushes at that.

\---

Three weeks later Allison is sitting in her therapist’s office having just told her doctor how Derek had called her last night and only said “I forgive you” before hanging up without her even managing a "hello". Isaac had confessed to maybe _possibly_ having let something slip accidentally at work. Because, in his own words, he “totally sucks”.

Allison didn’t think she would be, but she’s grateful.

And it is during that appointment, holding Isaac’s hand, that Allison calls her dad.

While the phone is ringing, Isaac leans over and asks her if she’s sure. If she’s alright.

Her heart is pounding in her chest, images of Derek and Kate flashing through her mind, and her hands have started to sweat. She’s sure it’s pretty gross, but Isaac doesn’t let go of her hand.

“It’s alright,” Allison tells him. “It’s going to be okay.”


End file.
